Hoosier

Keeping a close eye on the cell in eastern Will county.

Pretty rapid low level drying once you get into the SW winds. I think janetjanet brought that up earlier...

Hey, you're not alone. The CAM output last night had me thinking too much early convection/leftover cloud cover. Meanwhile, the sun is out here now. Fine line in these setups.

Ominous look on visible satellite imagery in IL. Low level moisture still lacking a bit toward Chicago but there is still some time and we probably won't even need to get dewpoints into the 60s to have problems given the steep mid level lapse rates with partial clearing.

I am a little surprised that the slight risk area extends this far west, but I guess it's not a big deal in the grand scheme as the higher probabilities are clearly farther east and south.

I am severely looking forward to the warmth tomorrow.

I'm not saying the higher numbers can't be realized, but with it still being mid March and a screaming low level wind field tomorrow, I am wondering how much mixing out may occur. This is where having some clouds around could help, within reason of course. The moisture aloft doesn't seem particularly shallow though, at least on the NAM, which is a good thing for severe prospects.

Yep, record/near record low pressure for that area

I am going to back this up to include the 13th, mainly for far southwestern areas.

Tough to answer since we are basically slaves to stuff being destroyed, which means that tornadoes that stay in open areas tend to get overlooked. I've always been mindful of what Fujita said about how the Plainfield tornado was one of the most impressive he had surveyed because of the corn damage, but I doubt that would make many lists. And it could be that the "corn science" is unreliable/outdated... I really don't know.

What are your thoughts on the substantial weakening of the surface low on approach? I am thinking it may not hurt because it could result in somewhat less forcing.

12z Euro gets it down to 971 mb on Wed afternoon.

The last 1" snowfall at ORD was back on February 18. It would be fairly unusual to not get another 1" snow after that date, but it's looking like a growing possibility. The last inch has occurred prior to February 18 less than 10 times, with the most recent occurrence happening in 2004.

Crazy

Not everyday that a sub 980 mb low emerges into the Plains like what may happen in a few days. The low is progged to fill as it moves toward our region though.

Gotta agree with the idea of judging by climo. Actually this can extend to other areas in life as well... if you are always evaluating based on thresholds that are fairly unrealistic (like being upset about not being a billionaire or something), it's not a good way imo. Anyway, that is pretty off topic lol

I'd go B-/C+. Snowfall will end up somewhere near or just below average (assuming not too much more falls) and I can't really point to one snowstorm that will stick out in my memory 10 years from now. Very run of the mill season from a snow perspective. The most memorable storm is actually the February ice storm. The lack of snow in December is a knock on the grade, but as others have mentioned, there were some memorable occurrences that bring up the grade. The late January cold and getting below zero in March with no snowcover (arguably more rare than the January cold) are things I will remember for a long time.

Pattern sucks. I call it the no man's land pattern, where you are too far north for severe and too far south for snow. Unfortunately it's not all that unusual at this time of year around here.

Rockford did get to 10 intrahour. Chicago's high of 12 broke the daily record low max of 17 in 1890.

The low of -3 at ORD is technically the coldest March temperature to occur with 0 snowcover. I say technically because March 1, 1962 got to -5 and March 3, 1943 got to -3 with a T of snowcover in both cases. In any event, a very rare and impressive occurrence.

Yeah it does look interesting toward next weekend. At least one system and maybe 2. Has a shot to be the best snow potential in several weeks locally.

DJF... sort of an anti Nino look

I think it's both. The s/w is quite flat. A sharper system would've tried to come north but it wouldn't have been able to pull off a crazy far north solution given what's happening in Canada.

Watching with interest to see if ORD can drop below 0 on Monday morning (LOT currently forecasting 0). It's a fairly unusual occurrence for March and even more unusual with little/no snow on the ground. The last time Chicago got below 0 in March with less than 1" of snowcover was back in 1943. This particular setup is more advective cold driven than radiational cooling driven, which won't hurt with the lack of snowcover and ORD's difficulty radiating.

We (downtown into northwest IN) are an area that has missed out, relatively speaking. On the whole it's been neither a particularly terrible winter nor one of the better ones. Mediocre sums it up. A lot of winters are like that.